Faculty & Post Doctoral Fellows

Dr.Yogeswaran Umasankar

Research Assistant Professot

Biography: Dr. Yogeswaran Umasankar is a Research Assistant Professor in the Biomolecular Sciences Institute at the Florida International University. In 2009 he received his PhD in Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology from National Taipei University of Technology, Taiwan. His expertise are in the electrochemical bio-sensing, electrochemical energy generation and energy storage devices. His current research focuses on developing fuel cell based biosensors and enzymatic biosensors using nanomaterial matrix for continuous monitoring systems, wearable biosensors. He has co-authored over 75 journal and conference publications and has been an editor of the book ‘Nanostructured materials for electrochemical biosensors’. He served in the editorial boards of ‘Journal of Nanoscience’ and ‘International Journal of Chemistry’.

Research Interests:

Developing a platform for monitoring severe hyperglycemia: Insufficient ketogenesis can cause hypoglycemia and excessive production of ketones leads to a dangerous state ketoacidosis. Ketoacidosis is the most serious hyperglycemic emergency in patients with diabetes. Existing point-of-care devices are incapable of monitoring patients continually. Much of the current work involves development of the non-invasive transdermal electrochemical sensors for real time monitoring of the serious hyperglycemic emergencies.

Platform for monitoring wound severity: Foot ulcers occur in about twenty-five percent of diabetic patients, and about six million sufferers in United States at a cost of twenty-five billion per year. The duration between the wound formation to the commencement of a wound management may be lengthy, because the laboratory tests takes many days to complete. To reduce the diagnostic time, the current work involves development of the electrochemical transducers for the real time diagnosis.

Dr. Mubarak Mujawar

Post Doctorate Fellow

Biography: Dr. Mubarak Mujawar is a postdoctoral research associate at BioMEMS-Microsystems Laboratory, Florida International University. His research is focused on investigating low temperature plasmas for their applications in nanofabrication and biotechnology. He is also involved in undergraduate STEM education research and have interest in creating active and collaborative learning environments for large classrooms. He received his PhD in Plasma Physics from Dublin City University, Ireland. Prior to joining FIU, he worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at Laser and Plasma applications group, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

Current Research:

Cold atmospheric plasma: Advent of plastic electronics demands robust and versatile techniques for polymer surface treatment at lower temperatures. The properties of atmospheric plasma jets, such as low temperature operation and high density active species generation at ambient pressure, are being exploited to tailor surface activation and modification processes.

Metal Insulator Metal device: Metal-insulator-Metal (MIM) devices have potential applications in the areas ranging from solar energy harvesting to magnetic RAM for data storage. The current research is aimed at understanding the effect of process conditions and process parameters on MIM device characteristics.

Active and collaborative learning: In large enrolment introductory STEM classrooms, students are often passive receptors of instructors’ knowledge. Students also have fewer opportunities to interact with peers and instructors. To address these issues active and collaborative learning methods are being explored.

Dr. Renny Fernandez

Post-Doctorate Fellow

Renny Fernandez is a postdoctoral fellow at the Bhansali Lab. His primary focus is on developing miniaturized analytical platforms, smart biosensors and printed electronics.
His research association with various academic institutions has led to significant contributions in the area of disposable electrodes, microfluidic electrophoresis, dielectrophoresis enabled biosensing and Solid-state DNA sequencing. Dr. Fernandez has published 14 journal articles and 21 conference proceedings. His publications reflect his research interests in the broad area of biosensors and bioelectronics. He obtained his Ph.D at the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India.